Review – Supernatural: Thielemann conducts Bruckner and Brahms in Salzburg | News and criticism | BR CLASSIC
Criticism – Supernatural
Thielemann conducts Bruckner and Brahms in Salzburg
07/29/2022 by Fridemann Leipold
2024 is Bruckner year. Reason for Christian Thielemann to perform and record the entire Bruckner cycle. With the unfinished Ninth Symphony at the Salzburg Festival, he is now about halfway through – and is being enthusiastically celebrated.
Image source: c Matthias Creutziger
A staccato of wildly hammering rhythms knocks our ears off Anton Bruckner in the scherzo of his Ninth Symphony – the approaching machine age shows its grim face. With full use of his body, Christian Thielemann animates the Vienna Philharmonic, “his” Bruckner Orchestra, to vehement attacks. But they can also be different, as they show in the fragrant trio of this harsh scherzo, which – very Mendelssohn-like – scurries by like an elfish ghost. In the midst of the turmoil, Bruckner finds heart-moving melodies that are played out by the velvety strings of the Viennese Innig.
Elīna Garanča sings “Alto Rhapsody” by Brahms – wonderful
One would have liked to have listened longer to the wonderful Elīna Garanča with Brahms’ “Alto Rhapsody”. | Image source: Christoph Köstlin
It’s a pity that Johannes Brahms’ “Alto Rhapsody” played before is so short – one would have liked to have listened to the wonderful mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča longer. With the flooding fullness of her precious timbre, guttural depth and creative power, Garanča endured the pains of the lone wanderer before joining a male choir in the final prayer. In his song scene based on stanzas from Goethe’s Harzreise im Winter, Brahms worked through his unhappy love for a Schumann daughter. Brahms and Bruckner didn’t see each other green. And yet the “Alto Rhapsody”, with its darkly founded sound and its symphonic character, was a good prelude to Bruckner’s unfinished legacy.
Thielemann conducts by heart
Christian Thielemann conducts the colossal fragment by heart, always keeping Bruckner’s spacious architecture in mind without getting lost in the details. Yes, this last work, which Bruckner somewhat helplessly dedicated to “Dem Lieber Gott” at the end of his life, is a productive impertinence. Above all, the ramified first movement, which is disturbing due to the force of its thematic blocks and their destruction, can still overwhelm today’s audience.
A softly rounded, creamy Bruckner sound
Thielemann takes it all in a pleasantly flowing manner, dealing with the tempo very freely. He always follows Bruckner’s sweeping phrases. Emphasizing the corners and edges of this music isn’t really his thing. He loves the softly rounded, velvety Bruckner sound, as embodied in its purest form by the Vienna Philharmonic. This also applies to the harmonic excesses in the final Adagio, where Bruckner piles up shrill dissonances that make hearing and seeing pass by.
Final sentence unearthly beautiful
Bruckner has thus opened the door to the future. After this shocking glimpse into hell, he finally finds his peace in a long swan song. Bruckner wrote “Farewell to Life” over a chorale-like passage of this adagio that concludes his Ninth Symphony – the final movement did not go beyond sketches. Thielemann plays this with the Vienna Philharmonic in an unearthly beauty, woodwinds, horn players and Wagner tubists achieve great things, the trumpeters had a rather bad day. Not everything is 100% precise, which is not surprising considering Thielemann’s exalted conducting style. It is the leaping musical spirit for which he is frenetically celebrated by the festival audience at the end.
Show: “Allegro” on July 29, 2022 from 6:05 a.m. on BR-KLASSIK